The Captain Who Wouldn’t Go Down With His Ship
Somebody is in big trouble. And deserves everything he gets.
Schettino had his reasons for staying put: “I am coordinating from here.” “There is another lifeboat in the way.” “It is dark and we can’t see anything.”
The Coast Guard official subjected him to a withering attack, but it was fruitless:
Coast Guard: Get going. There are corpses already Schettino. Move!
Schettino: How many dead are there?
Coast Guard: I don’t know. One I am aware of. You need to be telling me this. Christ!
Schettino: But you are aware that it is dark and we can’t see anything?
Coast Guard: And what do you want, to go back home, Schettino?
Coward.
Tags: Cruise Ship, Disaster
This is such an amazing story — the BBC has been going nuts playing the tape of this conversation with the Captain all day. There is a protocol for managing accidents for ships (and planes, I think) once you’ve declared an emergency you can’t walk away and let other people deal with it. I don’t know if this guy was ever in danger, but it’s as though he didn’t care about his passengers. This is a Carnival Company owned ship, right? Can’t wait to see how they try to put this back together.
I can’t believe the captain did this.
This – “Coast Guard: I don’t know. One I am aware of. You need to be telling me this. Christ!” – sums up everything. The captain was cowardly and clueless. You’re right, Cassandra, he simply didn’t care.
The captain simply followed what is known as the “Rumsfeld Maneuver”.
Brilliant observation, Joe!
“And deserves everything he gets.”
Kill him! NO, spare him!
Deserve everyting he gets does not mean kill him, Anon. It means end his career, shame him, and prison. Indeed, I hear that you get 12 years in prison in Italy for just abandoning the ship alone when you have passengers in distress. Italy is holding him on that and manslaughter charges too.
send in sully!